Cannabis Summit

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Overview

Cannabis once grew in secret, traded by murderous cartels and smoked by consumers who risked jail. Now, countries all over the world have licensed the drug for medical purposes. Ten American states have so far legalised its recreational use, and pioneering Uruguay was recently joined by G7-member Canada in the legal-weed club. Parliaments from Mexico to South Africa to New Zealand are currently debating reforms of their own.

Yet the repeal of prohibition marks the start of complex arguments:

How to regulate both medical and recreational cannabis?

For bureaucrats—how to tax it, which varieties to allow, who should sell it?

Can social equity legislation help empower communities that have been disproportionately affected by the drug war?

Will regulation finally force the cannabis industry to ‘go green’?

With legalisation also comes new opportunities for investment, from growers and dispensaries to innovative weed tech and breakthrough science. In January 2018 Bank of Montreal became the first of the major Canadian banks to invest in a Cannabis company. Will other large-scale institutional investors soon follow suit, or will fear of the unknown continue to hold them back?

Join editors from The Economist on June 5th, Toronto at the CannabisSummit to discover new science and innovations around marijuana and determine how to shape well-regulated cannabis markets across the globe.

Speakers

Beau Kilmer

Senior policy researcher, RAND Corporation

Beau Kilmer

Senior policy researcher, RAND Corporation

Dr. Beau Kilmer is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, where he co-directs the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. His research lies at the intersection of public health and public safety, with special emphasis on crime control, substance use, illicit markets, and public policy. Dr. Kilmer's publications have appeared in leading journals such as Lancet Psychiatry,New England Journal of Medicine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and his commentaries on drug policy have been published by CNN, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and other outlets. His coauthored book on cannabis legalization was published by Oxford University Press and the second edition was released in 2016 (with Jonathan Caulkins and Mark Kleiman). Kilmer received a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Public Service Award for his “leadership and innovation in the areas of alcohol and drug-impaired driving program and policy research” and his co-authored work on 24/7 Sobriety received honorable mention for the Behavioural Exchange Award for Outstanding Research. Before earning his doctorate at Harvard University, Kilmer received a Judicial Administration Fellowship that supported his work with the San Francisco Drug Court.

Ben Curren

Chief executive and founder, Green Bits

Ben Curren

Chief executive and founder, Green Bits

Ben is the chief executive and founder of Green Bits, the nation’s leading compliance and retail management platform for the legal cannabis industry. Green Bits helps legal cannabis retailers run compliant, operationally efficient, and growing businesses. The platform serves approximately 1,000 cannabis retailers across 12 states and processes more than $2.5 billion in sales annually through its point-of-sale platform. Before Green Bits, Ben co-founded Outright, an accounting program for freelancers and consultants. In 2012, he sold Outright to GoDaddy, the giant web hosting company. He believes that you must understand why things are the way they are before you can successfully change them. He is a proud father of two, husband, lifelong learner, mentor, and entrepreneur.

Abby Epstein

Executive producer, Weed The People

Abby Epstein

Executive producer, Weed The People

Abby Epstein made her film directing debut at the 2004 Sundance FilmFestival with the documentary, V-Day: Until the Violence Stops, featuring Jane Fonda, Salma Hayek and Rosie Perez. The film won the Audience Award at Vancouver’s Amnesty International Film Festival and premiered on Lifetime Television, receiving both an Emmy and a Gracie Allen Award. In 2007, she teamed up with Ricki Lake for their widely acclaimed documentary, The Business of Being Born, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was released by New Line Cinema/Netflix and broadcast on Showtime. The film’s success led to their follow-up series, More Business of Being Born, featuring Cindy Crawford, Alanis Morissette, Gisele Bündchen and Christy Turlington plus a book, Your Best Birth, published by Hachette. Next, the duo teamed up for Weed the People, which premiered at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival and won the Audience Award at the Nashville Film Festival. Weed the People was acquired by Netflix for distribution. Under their company BOBB Films, Ms. Epstein and Ms. Lake produced the documentaries Breastmilk and The Mama Sherpas and are currently in production on Sweetening the Pill, due out in 2019. Prior to her film work, Ms. Epstein directed Broadway theater, helming national tours and international productions of RENT and The Vagina Monologues.

Sébastien St. Louis

Chief executive and co-founder, HEXO Corp

Sébastien St. Louis

Chief executive and co-founder, HEXO Corp

Sébastien St. Louis is an entrepreneur with strong leadership abilities, financial acumen and operational expertise. Sébastien has wide-ranging business experience in manufacturing, distribution, trade finance and commercial lending. He has advised Canadian business owners and chief executives across multiple industry sectors, while structuring and closing $200 million in financing to support their export and growth initiatives.

Sébastien co-founded HEXO Corp. with one goal in mind: to create a world-class company based on the highest standards of product quality and safety. Since 2013, he has secured more than $260 million dollars in financing for the company. His leadership has been instrumental in navigating the company through regulatory, financing and start-up challenges on route to becoming the only significant licensed cannabis producer in Quebec and, upon completion of two fully-funded expansion projects currently underway, one of the largest in Canada. Sébastien holds an MBA in Finance from the Université du Québec à Montréal and completed his bachelor of arts (Economics) from the University of Ottawa in 18 months

Andrew Potter

Professor, McGill University and co-author, High Time

Andrew Potter

Professor, McGill University and co-author, High Time

Andrew Potter is associate professor at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. He is the former editor in chief of the Ottawa Citizen and public affairs columnist for Maclean's magazine.

Pranav Sood

Founder and chief executive, Trellis

Pranav Sood

Founder and chief executive, Trellis

Serial entrepreneur Pranav Sood is paving the way for regulatory change and acceptance within the emerging cannabis industry. His company, Trellis, helps regulated cannabis growers, manufacturers and distributors across the globe manage compliance, increase yields and optimize business. Prior to founding Trellis, Pranav worked in management consulting, IT for a leading global retailer, and launched various startup ventures where he developed a passion for building B2B companies. He holds an HBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business. Originally from Toronto, Canada, Pranav now splits his time between Toronto and Los Angeles.

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah

Assistant professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah

Assistant professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah BA (Carleton) MA, PhD (Toronto) is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. He is also an Affiliate Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and the Director of Research for the Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty. Dr. Owusu-Bempah’s work examines the intersections of race, crime and criminal justice, with a particular focus in the area of policing. He has investigated the racialized nature of Cannabis law enforcement in Canada and worked with major media outlets such as the Toronto Star and Vice News to bring this information to the general public. With an eye on social justice, he is currently exploring how cannabis legalization is being used as a means to redress the various harms caused by drug prohibition. Dr. Owusu-Bempah began his academic career in the United States at Indiana University, Bloomington. Prior to becoming a professor, he held positions with Canada’s National Judicial Institute, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. He published regularly in academic and popular forums.

Madelaine Drohan

Canada correspondent, The Economist

Madelaine Drohan

Canada correspondent, The Economist

Madelaine Drohan is the Canada correspondent for The Economist. For the last 30 years, she has covered business and politics in Canada, Europe, Africa and Asia.

She is the author of The 9 Habits of Highly Successful Resource Economies: Lessons for Canada, a research report that she wrote in 2012 for the Canadian International Council.

Her book, Making a Killing: How and why corporations use armed force to do business, was published in 2003 by Random House of Canada and in 2004 by The Lyons Press in the United States. It won the Ottawa Book Award and was short-listed for the National Business Book of the Year Award in 2004.

When possible, she conducts journalism workshops for media in Africa and Southeast Asia, with a special focus on business and investigative journalism.

She was awarded a Reuters Fellowship at Oxford University in 1998, and the Hyman Solomon Award for Excellence in Public Policy Journalism in 2001. She was a 2004-2005 Media Fellow at the Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership and the 2004-2005 Journalist in Residence at Carleton University.

She has sat as a volunteer director on the boards of the North-South Institute, Transparency International Canada and Partnership Africa Canada, where she was also president.

Tom Wainwright

Britain editor, The Economist

Tom Wainwright

Britain editor, The Economist

Tom Wainwright is the Britain Editor of The Economist. He joined the Britain section in 2007 to cover a beat including crime and justice, migration and social affairs. In 2010 he became the newspaper’s Mexico City bureau chief, responsible for coverage of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. There he wrote a special report on Mexico (“From darkness, dawn”, 2012). In 2013 he returned to London, to take up the role of Homepage Editor, and latterly International Correspondent before his current appointment in 2015.

Before joining The Economist Mr Wainwright was a trainee on the Daily Express, and a contributor to newspapers including the Times, Guardian and Daily Telegraph. He read philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University, graduating in 2004. He has been interviewed on TV and radio in Britain, America and Mexico. His first book, “Narconomics: How To Run A Drug Cartel”, was published in 2016.

Adam Roberts

Midwest correspondent, The Economist

Adam Roberts

Midwest correspondent, The Economist

Adam Roberts is European Business and Finance correspondent based in Paris. Prior to this he was South Asia correspondent for The Economist, based in Delhi, where he oversaw political and general coverage from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, among other countries. Adam joined The Economist as a writer in the Foreign Department in June 1998, with a particular focus on developing countries and transnational issues. From May 2001 to the end of 2005 he was the Southern Africa correspondent, based in Johannesburg. Subsequently he was the News Editor of Economist.com, in London, until 2010. He has been in India since 2010. He has written special reports on the Nordic countries (2003) and on International Migration (2008). He has written a book about a mercenary coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea, “The Wonga Coup” (2006), published in Britain, the United States and South Africa.

Agenda

Opening remarks

9:05 AM

The case for legalisation: The right way to do the drugs

What is the case for legalising cannabis and what is the potential economic impact of such a measure? What are the main opportunities and roadblocks? What regulation is needed for the market to survive? What are the untapped opportunities in this rapidly growing industry?

Beau Kilmer

Senior policy researcher, RAND Corporation

Beau Kilmer

Senior policy researcher, RAND Corporation

Dr. Beau Kilmer is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, where he co-directs the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. His research lies at the intersection of public health and public safety, with special emphasis on crime control, substance use, illicit markets, and public policy. Dr. Kilmer's publications have appeared in leading journals such as Lancet Psychiatry,New England Journal of Medicine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and his commentaries on drug policy have been published by CNN, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and other outlets. His coauthored book on cannabis legalization was published by Oxford University Press and the second edition was released in 2016 (with Jonathan Caulkins and Mark Kleiman). Kilmer received a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Public Service Award for his “leadership and innovation in the areas of alcohol and drug-impaired driving program and policy research” and his co-authored work on 24/7 Sobriety received honorable mention for the Behavioural Exchange Award for Outstanding Research. Before earning his doctorate at Harvard University, Kilmer received a Judicial Administration Fellowship that supported his work with the San Francisco Drug Court.

9:40 AM

The politics of spliffs and butts

It is high time for a new debate on drug policy. We will analyse legalisation through the eyes of policymakers and explore the plethora of challenges regarding implementation across the world. What are the lessons learned from Uruguay and Canada, and what are the gaps in research and thoughts on how public health experts can guide good public policy? How is Canada implementing legislation to permit a nationwide marijuana market? And how are countries across the world regulating their developing medical marijuana industries?

10:15 AM

Red, white and...green?: The future of cannabis in America

Thirty-three US states have legalised marijuana in some form with ten allowing recreational use. With 66% of Americans supporting nationwide legalisation and multiple states expected to add legalisation measures to their 2020 ballots, the US cannabis industry is growing fast. Pioneering entrepreneurs and investors have seen some high returns but banking regulations and growing competition pose key questions for the long term. How can policymakers and key stakeholders shape the future of cannabis policy in the US to create a profitable industry?

10:45 AM

Morning networking break

11:15 AM

Cannabis for good: Legalisation meets social justice

Increasingly cannabis legislation is focusing on social equity. New legislation gives preference to communities that have been over policed and disproportionately affected by cannabis prohibition. In the United States, Massachusetts and California are already implementing such policies. What can be learned from these models? Can social equity policies empower these communities or, in an oversaturated and under regulated market, are they being set up to fail? What is the best strategy to increase wealth in disenfranchised communities through marijuana policy? And what private sector efforts are being made to improve social equity through cannabis?

11:45 AM

Voices from the future: Cannabis across the globe

In these ten minute “ted-talk style” segments, we will hear from the next generation of Cannabis entrepreneurs from around the world.

11:55 AM

Doctor’s orders: Innovations in medical marijuana

Thirty countries across the globe now have some form of legalised medical
marijuana. The majority of these countries are in Europe, and recently a number of African countries have moved from de facto to actual legalisation. These nations have opened their doors to a branch of scientific discovery that was previously stunted by prohibition. Can medicinal marijuana reshape the future of medicine? What are the opportunities and challenges around medicinal marijuana? And which pharma companies plan to integrate cannabis into their new R&D?

12:25 PM

Lunch

1:25 PM

Concurrent strategy sessions:

MAKING GREEN GREEN: So far, marijuana growers have been able to bear the costs of high energy bills and environmental degradation because there has been neither a regulatory nor financial imperative for them to change theirmethods. How will the burgeoning cannabis industry confront its massive environmental footprint? A TALE OF TWO SUBSTANCES: Alcohol is betting on weed. From the owners of Corona to Molson Coors and Heineken, the race is on to bring
cannabis-infused beer to the mass market. What regulatory and PR
challenges will need to be overcome beforehand? And is cannabis-infused
liquor around the corner?

2:25 PM

High time for investment

Has Canadian legalisation reshaped the investment landscape? In 2018 Bank of Montreal became the first institutional investor to invest in a cannabis company, while beer giant Constellation Brands recently put $4 billion into a Canadian cannabis startup. Is this a turning point for the industry, or will major investors continue to watch from the sidelines? With legalisation comes new research and innovation. As scientists perfect cannabis products for pain management and sleep deprivation, the industry can expand from the younger demographic to the aging - a highly profitable segment. What other new science is on the horizon, and who will be the first to invest?

3:00 PM

Silicon Valley meets Bob Marley

Weed tech. There is an app to test what's in your weed; an Uber-like service to optimise medical marijuana delivery; and an AI potbot to sort through
peer-reviewed medical journals to find the right strain of cannabis for a specific disease. What's the reality beyond the hype and what technologies really have the potential to revolutionise cannabis business models?

3:30 PM

Voices from the future: Cannabis across the globe

In these ten minute “ted-talk style” segments, we will hear from the next generation of Cannabis entrepreneurs from around the world.

4:10 PM

Have your hash cake and eat it too

In places where weed has already been legalised, consumers are enjoying
new—and increasingly high-end—ways to get high. Cannabis can now be
vaporised, absorbed under the tongue, or smoked in a hyper-concentrated form. Edibles have been undergoing a particularly marked revolution with
cannabis-infused candy, breath sprays, spritzers, and savory foods. Who are the guides and ambassadors to this world? And who are the executives best placed to make a mint from marijuana?

4:40 PM

Closing debate: The highs and lows of investment

Motion: This house believes that institutional investors should invest in cannabis in 2019.

HEXO Corp. is one of Canada's lowest cost producers of easy-to-use and easy-to-understand products to serve the Canadian medical and adult-use cannabis markets. HEXO Corp's brands include Hydropothecary, an award-winning medical cannabis brand and HEXO, for the adult-use market.

The Economist - Impact of Cannabis legalisation

Cannabis can now be sold legally for recreational use in California. The change in law in the most populous American state has the potential to make marijuana go mainstream.

The World If … drugs become legal

As part of the Daily Watch ‘drugs week’ we explore what the world might look like if legalisation replaces the failing war on drugs. Join Tom Wainwright, Britain editor of The Economist and author of Narconomics, as he predicts what would happen to the cartels

2019: the year of moon missions, marijuana and mega-hub airports

From groundbreaking moon missions to growth in the legal-cannabis market, 2019 will be year of new highs. Here’s what to watch out for in the year ahead.

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